Successful selling lying on your back

I never cease to be amazed by how little effort many salespeople put into improving their sales skills. Ironically, of course, if you’re reading this I am probably not speaking to you. If you didn’t care about your sales development and your sales results then you probably wouldn’t be reading this at all.

One of the questions that I ask of the audience in my Selling in Tough Markets (or Selling in a Recession) keynote speech is, “Who is currently reading a book on selling?” The answer is usually about 2% of the audience at any one particular sales conference. Even if you widen this to, “Who has read a sales book in the last 6 months?” the percentage of sales professionals answering in the affirmative is still well under 10%… a very low figure by anyone’s reckoning.

Reading a book on sales, business, personal development or even a biography of a successful person can benefit you in many ways. You can benefit by…

• Learning new skills, strategies and techniques. If each book that you read delivered you even just one new strategy, one new skill and one new technique what would that mean for you, your sales results and your business over the next 5-10 years? A heck of a lot – that’s what. Top performing salespeople tell me that they always learn something from every sales seminar they attend or every sales book they read. It’s only less successful salespeople that come up with the line, “I knew it all already”.
  
• Revising, improving and reenergizing existing skills. As Anthony Robbins is fond of saying, “Repetition is the mother of skill”. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. I am constantly amazed by how much I “get” from rereading really quite basic books that I have read before. Sometimes, several times. It’s not that there is something new in there, it’s that you see stuff differently and make critical distinctions that you did not make on the first read.
• Building motivation and self-confidence. People who study have an inner confidence. It comes from knowing that you know your stuff, knowing that you are in the top 5%, knowing that you can do a professional job and knowing that you have put your time in.
• Continuing professional development. All professionals undertake ongoing learning programmes to improve, refresh and update their skills. Why should salespeople be any different?
• Empowering yourself with a sales superstar mindset. In today’s economy, there is far too much negativity and far too many people moaning about how bad things are, how we should be prepared for the worst, how things are all going to go wrong and why there is nothing you can do about it. Spending time focusing on what you can do, what people are doing and sharpening your sales and business skills is the perfect antidote.

Listening to the news and reading many experts at the moment is like being bitten by a deadly snake – the bite won’t kill you but the poison seeping through your veins just might. I have two tips…

1. Take lots of pre-emptive antidote &
2. Try not to be bitten in the first place

That means, surrounding yourself with motivational books, audios, seminars and people and avoiding negativity as and when you can. Still not convinced? Check out what someone wrote having read Objections! Objections! Objections! recently…

I am a sales professional and have been selling for about 15 years… I have contracts that require a lot of cold calling. I seemed to not be getting anywhere and was feeling pretty de-motivated. I saw your book Objections, Objections, Objections and read it cover to cover. I put the advice into immediate practice, and from getting an appointment rate of 1 per 10 phone calls, I am now getting on average 6 per 10 phone calls – simply by changing my approach.

Now I don’t know about you but that seems like a real sales result to me. Here’s what you need to do…

• Think about the areas of selling and business that you could do with a boost in.
• Research books or other learning products that meet your needs.
• Check out their reviews online.
• Buy them.
• Commit to reading 15 minute per day.

It’s amazing what you can achieve in such a short period of time. Have a great week

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